Saturday, 19 April 2014

Last night I had a special project to work on for FNSI. A close friend was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery within a week. Having just moved to Perth from the Pilbara she is going to feel the cold terribly this winter. Chemo on top of that could make the cold weather almost unbearable. So, I decided she needed a warm quilt to snuggle under.

I was lucky enough to find a great range of flannel fabrics in Pilbara colours from Quintessential Quilts in Morley...warm fabrics in warm colours, just what my friend needs. I wanted a simple layout and so decided to make a Queen size (roughly) quilt from 5.5" squares. Last night I finished cutting the remaining 2 colours of fabric and started work on the layout.

Colour design gets underway

I lay a white sheet on the floor as my 'design board' and went to work dropping squares, on point, randomly around it. Thank goodness for Miss A who came to help and added her wonderful eye for colour placement to the process. I would have been there all night otherwise!

It's not as easy as it sounds to place fabric squares 'randomly' but I really wanted a scrappy feel to the quilt. This is as far as we got.

First draft - white squares are 'holes' to be filled

We then had to move it to the front lounge room so I wouldn't trip over it while attending to Miss M during the night, and Miss M wouldn't try to be creative with the fabrics this morning. It took 4 of us to move it. Thank goodness I had thought to place it on a sheet.

Successfully moved with (almost) everything still in place

During the night I realised that I had forgotten to allow for seam allowances when working out the final dimensions of the quilt top. I needed another row, both horizontally & vertically. This morning I cut more fabric and this afternoon my wonderful husband took Miss M visiting family so I could work uninterrupted. This is the final draft layout.

Waiting for Miss A's input upon her return from work

This is a project of firsts for me - first bed sized quilt, first scrappy quilt & first time working with flannel fabrics. I would appreciate any advice, suggestions, hints or tips, & your honest feedback on the layout. I have been working on it so hard that I am finding it a little hard to be objective at the moment.

Thanks very much to Wendy from Sugarlane Quilts for hosting our FNSI again this month. It made for a very productive & enjoyable Good Friday. You can see what everyone else got up to at Wendý's blog. Just click on the blog name above and it will take you there.

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

I was able to get a few nights of stitching in last week but only managed to get half way through my Jacobean stitchery. This is how it looked at the end of my embroidery group catch-up on Thursday night. I'm quite happy with how it's coming along.

You may remember from an earlier post that I've been reading Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilts series of novels. They often contain a story line that shows how quilting played a part in the American Civil War and this got me wondering about quilts and quilting in Australian history.

After a bit of searching online I discovered this book by Annette Gero (http://www.annettegero.com/) which looks at quilting in Australia from convict times to the 1960s. I was very excited to receive my copy in the mail late last week but have really only had a chance to skim through it so far. It is a beautiful book and I'm looking forward to reading it properly.